Shoe of Distraction
by MeredithBrody
Summary: There is an unwanted visitor at a crime scene, leading to Pride grabbing the first convenient thing to throw. (implied Prody)


**So, because Prody has been rather thin on the ground for me this hiatus (I've been writing Brody/James and Brody/Gibbs almost entirely) I was complaining at PinkAngel17 earlier, and she set me the challenge to write this... then I wrote the whole thing in half an hour. Also the written wordcount on this chapter is 1701 and she is laughing about it. At least I think that sound I hear is laughter. Anyway. This goes out to Steph too who has been begging me for some Prody.  
Shin xx**

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The thing Pride least liked about being out at crime scenes was that, on occasion, there was an unwelcome visitor. This wasn't the first time he'd come up against a gator while working, but it was the first time that the gator had actually looked like it was going to mess with the scene. Looking around he found the least valuable thing he could throw to distract the gator and tugged it off then threw it. He didn't have to wait even a second for the reaction of the person who's shoe he'd just thrown away. "Pride what the hell."

"I was protecting you. There was a gator." He pointed to the gator, who was now stopped clearly working at chewing on Brody's shoe. They should both probably be happy that she was knelt down right now, though if she hadn't been he probably would have had to throw something that wasn't her shoe. That was clearly where her brain was going when she looked at him.

"So you took my shoe off and threw it at the gator?" The sarcasm in that question was so very high, and he wondered if that was part of why she'd asked it the way she did. He was almost certain that that was evident, at this point. As the shoe was no longer on her foot, and the gator was clearly trying to chew it.

"Well, I needed to distract it." He defended again. There was actually probably no easy way for him to get out of this, but he was finding it funnier than he probably should have done. This was not going to end well for him, but he didn't care right now. It was too damn amusing.

"Why didn't you throw your own damn shoe?" There sarcasm was giving way to annoyance now, and he was pretty sure that she was going to find a way to punish him for this.

"Your shoe was convenient." He grinned, wondering if she was going to be able to joke about this already. She didn't waver in her judgmental glare, and he realised that she wasn't really buying his 'innocent joker' routine. "Because I can carry you." He tried answering a little more seriously.

"So not getting you off the hook." She shook her head and looked back at her now-bare foot. He had to admit, from his angle it was hilarious. A buttoned up and professional NCIS agent with only one shoe on, and of course he'd managed to take her sock with the shoe. He hadn't intended for that.

"The gator caught your shoe though, did you see that?" He had to ask and make sure that she'd seen the gator catch her shoe too. That had been something pretty awesome to see, as no gator had ever caught something he'd thrown before.

"I saw that." She rolled her eyes and bagged the last bit of evidence from this area, looking at him and clearly expecting him to help. He came up behind her and picked her up onto her feet again. "Now get me out of here." She suggested, and he smirked, walking away a little.

"Follow me." He teased, almost certain that if he was in arms reach she would have smacked him as hard as she could for that. This was entertaining him far too much, and he probably should stop trying to wind her up, but it was so much fun.

"In one shoe? No chance." She shook her head, and he had to look at her then and smirk again with a laugh. Brody was clearly thinking on something she could do to make it so that they could both get out of there quickly, and leave the gator alone to his territory. "I'll carry the evidence bags, you carry me."

He rolled his eyes a little and laughed. There was a joke he could make, and because right now he had no sense of self preservation he was going to say the joke. It was going to end up in a brutal murder if her carried on, but it was funny. "So really I'm carrying all of you?"

"Don't even start you threw my shoe at an alligator." She complained as he picked her up at that and kissed her cheek softly. The whole reason he'd agreed to help her look for evidence here was that they'd get to be alone for a little while. Her shoe did slip off a lot easier than one of his boots would have been.

"You're the one who once adopted an alligator." He reminded her, deciding that it had been long enough since he'd brought up that story that she wouldn't be too annoyed about it. Only a month after she'd arrived in New Orleans, they'd captured a baby alligator that had eaten some evidence, and Brody had ended up falling in love with the small dragon-dinosaur.

"Until you and LaSalle made me take him to that place." She pouted, and he laughed walking back in the direction of their main scene and where their cars and vans were all parked up.

"Bob would be much happier among his own kind." He remembered the name she'd given the little gator, and remembered how she had made sure he had water and food. Brody had been dedicated to that alligator, even if he'd only been in their possession for a couple of days.

"We still bonded." She grumbled, and he couldn't help but laugh again. Clearly she was beginning to lighten up as she suddenly smiled and looked at him with a wide smirk. "I wonder if he ever thinks of me."

"He's an alligator, Merri." Pride laughed, not really sure what to think of that thought. He wasn't sure if she was full of wishful thinking, or if finally they had pushed her over the edge and she'd officially lost what was left of her mind. He wouldn't have been surprised if it was the latter.

"He could still think of me from time to time." She continued with a smirk. If that was what she wanted to believe he wasn't going to keep pushing her to forget that, but he couldn't help thinking about how weird she was sometimes. He loved her, but she was so very strange.

"You know, I think Christopher was right about you all along, you are a bit odd." He laughed, remembering how in the early weeks of Brody's assignment to New Orleans LaSalle had commented about Brody being a bit odd on more than one occasion.

She rolled her eyes, and he couldn't help but laugh even more. She was odd, but he really couldn't imagine her being any other way now. "Do you really want to credit LaSalle with that bit of knowledge, because I could put you in touch with come girls from junior high who've been saying it a lot longer." There were rarely people he disliked as much without meeting as some of the people who had gone to boarding school with Brody and her sister, but he really disliked some of them.

"I don't think I could keep my cool around the mean girls from your boarding school. I've heard the stories." He didn't like bullies. He'd never liked bullies, and that included old bullies. Brody may have moved on and forgiven most of them, but he didn't need to do that. He was always going to hate people who had hurt _his_ Brody.

"Wuss." She commented as they got back to the van and he sat her on the edge. She held her foot a little off the floor, and he couldn't blame her for that either. It was hot and the floor was scorching.

"What happened th... actually, forget it, I don't wanna know." Percy trailed off, and Pride had to laugh at the look on her face. She clearly really didn't care what her colleague and their boss had been up to that caused them to come back with a missing shoe.

"He threw my shoe at an alligator." She said before anyone could get the wrong idea. Not that it really would have matter what anyone else thought.

"We didn't get eaten did we?" He shot back sarcastically. He knew that the gator wouldn't have eaten them anyway, but it was hilarious to him that it had happened.

"Can we just get back to the office where I have shoes, please?" Brody's request seemed to be fair, but he felt he should tease her a little more.

"You threw her shoe at a gator?" LaSalle asked, looking between the two of them then down to Percy. He couldn't help but just keep smirking. This was a very unusual day, but he was so happily amused he couldn't imagine stopping.

He smiled and looked at Brody, making sure that she was looking back at him before he said what he was thinking. Oh he was so not going to be forgiven for this any time soon. "I needed to throw something, and throwing her seemed like a 'bad boss' move." He wouldn't have thrown her anyway, but he'd needed to say something.

"You know I could just kill you and be done with all this." Brody replied with a smile on her face as he helped her around to the passenger side, then smiled as she started moving around to sit in, meaning he could run around to the driver side.

"You've only got one shoe on." He teased and laughed. He loved that she had lightened up a little more now that they were back with the team. Not that he could really blame her for being upset about her show.

"I think I'll ride with LaSalle. Why are they always like that?" They both heard Percy's question as she walked away from the car following LaSalle. Pride couldn't help but laugh a little more as he remembered when Brody would have thought similar things. How time changed. Even if they had had an unfortunate incident with a gator today, they'd gotten a lot of fun out of it, and eventually she'd forgive him for ruining a pair of her shoes. Eventually.


End file.
